Daily in Christ 3/13

"For I know the plans that I have for you," declares the LORD, "plans for welfare and not for calamity to give you a future and a hope"

I believe that God desires all His children to be successful, significant, fulfilled, satisfied, joyful, secure, and to live in peace. From birth you have been developing in your mind a means for experiencing these values and reaching other goals in life. Consciously or subconsciously you continue to formulate and adjust your plans for achieving these goals.

But sometimes your well-intended plans and noble-sounding goals are not completely in harmony with God's plans and goals for you. "How can I know if what I believe is right?" you may be wondering. "Must I wait until I am 45 years old or until I experience some kind of mid-life crisis to discover that what I believed was wrong?" I don't think so. I believe that God has designed us in such a way that we can know on a regular basis if our belief system is properly aligned with God's truth. God has established a feedback system which is designed to grab your attention so you can examine the validity of your goal.

That system is your emotions. When an experience or relationship leaves you feeling angry, anxious or depressed, those emotional signposts are there to alert you that you may be cherishing a faulty goal which is based on a wrong belief. If our goals are blocked, we become angry. If our goals are uncertain, we feel anxious. If we perceive our goals as impossible, we become depressed because the heart of depression is hopelessness.

Can any God-given goal be blocked, uncertain or impossible? Put another way, if God wants something done, can it be done? Of course! The question is do we have a biblical understanding of success, significance, fulfillment, satisfaction, joy, security and peace? When we see and pursue these values from God's perspective, we will reach our goals because they are God's goals for us.

Prayer: Lord, help me recognize when my goals today are not in line with Yours and make the proper adjustments in my belief system.

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